Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, you're absolutely right. In fact, there was legislation passed by the federal government after World War II essentially saying it's the policy of the federal government to try to prevent recessions. But this is very, very hard to do. First of all, you have to recognize that a recession is coming, and that's not easy. For example, a year ago, the top forecasters in the federal government, particularly in the Federal Reserve, were forecasting that the economy would continue to grow. Secondly, even after you detected an oncoming recession, government actions are not going to have instant results. One reason is because our economy is so big; it's a $14 trillion economy. And think of that as a large luxury liner ship and the federal government as a little tugboat that's trying to nudge it one way or the other. The federal government may be able to nudge the economy a little bit, but it's not going to turn the economy around. I think the best that we can hope for regarding federal government policy and recessions is that once we have a recession, we can contain it; we can sort of ease the bleeding."